>- The difference in graphics for threads with new posts and threads
>without is pretty minimal, especially for the ones with odd icons
>(information, etc). I've mostly gotten used to it, but it would be
>nice if the icons could be clearer on that point.

You live with Truss, he's the graphics d00d. Tell him to make new icons. ;-)

Basically color == new, monochrome == old.

>- For that matter, it would be nice if there were a non-graphical way
>of knowing whether there are new posts in a forum/thread. A text note
>beside the forum thread, or next to the icon would serve just fine -
>while it's a minor point, it'd be nice to not have to wait for the
>images to load (which can be slow even on a fast connection - and
>sometimes the images don't load on the first try).

Sounds like a weird browser thing - the image URLs never change, so I'd expect the browser to have them cached. I forget if the icons have decent ALT text...

>- And on an unrelated note: I am aware that DCF's structure makes it
>impossible to mark an individual thread as read (as opposed to an
>entire forum). However, it would be very much appreciated if a "mark
>thread" or even "mark post" feature were in any future forum versions
>that might appear -- not being able to mark an individual thread is
>very frustrating at times.

That's being considered for the new design. The issue is one of server load. You'd have to store a 'newsrc' style system for each forum user on the server, and check posts against that every time you generate a view. For a forum like this one with 200 users that's not too bad, but it would scale poorly for a generalized forum system - some forums have tens of thousands of registered users.

It is something Jer, Josh, and I will discuss more if the forum concepts move along. Marking by thread is probably easier, and less load, than marking by post. Think of it this way - if you have 10 forums and mark by forum you just need to store 10 timestamps per user. And you only need to check the timestamps when generating views - if the thread's/post's last updated timestamp is later than the mark, is is new.

If you have 10 forums and allow 200 threads per forum, and allow marking by thread, you have to store up to 2,000 timestamps per user. Then when generating the lobby view you have to check if any of the threads have a timestamp later than their last mark timestamp, if *any* do, then it is new.

Now per-post marking is a different beast. You'd have to store article numbers. If any of the threads have a post count higher than the highest 'marked' number for the thread, then it has new content.

This is all done by news - but with news all the work is done by the client the user is running, not all on the server.

Yeah, we're thinking about it.